| Every investor knows AI is hot. It was the buzzword of 2023. It's what launched stock market indexes higher last year. It's what almost every listed company's management now says they're using. And it's what companies have shouted the loudest about when they've announced their IPOs, or initial public offerings. Chipmaker Arm Holdings (Nasdaq: ARM) touted AI leading up to its September 14 IPO. It highlighted its focus on GPU chips, the not-so-secret sauce powering AI applications. And its IPO, initially priced at $51, opened at $56.10, traded up to $66.28 and closed the first day at $63.59. Instacart (Nasdaq: CART), formally known as Maplebear, also touted AI leading up to its September 19 IPO. And its first day as a public company was almost as explosive as Arm's. But it didn't last. Maybe that was because Instacart's AI-infused hype was more about getting investors to buy into the IPO than actually powering Instacart's revenues or profits. And therein lies a warning for investors. It's important to know what's real and what's not real about AI... who's using it to hype up stock prices and who's using it to actually make money... That's why investors need a road map when it comes to companies touting AI. In May 2023, when rumors that Instacart was planning an IPO started circulating, the company launched its AI-powered charm offensive. Leading up to the IPO, Instacart announced several major updates to its Storefront platform, all of them AI-driven. The platform powers storefronts for more than 550 retail brands, including Costco. The updates, according to VentureBeat, included conversational search capabilities powered by OpenAI's ChatGPT as well as proprietary AI models. The company also announced AI upgrades to its Caper Carts, the checkout technology it acquired in 2021 when it bought startup Caper AI for $350 million. There's nothing wrong with touting AI when a company actually uses it. What's wrong is advertising AI use or contemplated AI use to hype a company's stock price. Instacart priced its IPO at $30 a share. The buzz around the IPO was about how the company's new AI upgrades were powering sales and profits - which, in fact, they were. So it was no surprise the stock opened its first day of trading at $42, 40% above its IPO price. It got up to $42.95 that day but closed at $33.70 - still a decent 12.3% above the initial price. Then the AI hype, pushed by the IPO's underwriters, faded as reality took hold. The stock has been on a downward slope since its debut. It's now trading below the IPO price at $22 and some change. I was asked by Fox Business News hosts about Instacart and the AI prospects driving its profitability when it came to market. I told them I thought the hype was more about inflating the IPO and the stock than the company's profitability and that I couldn't in good conscience recommend it. Investors have been taken in by AI hype a lot lately, and it's going to wreck a lot of portfolios and retirement prospects. Instacart faces stiff competition from DoorDash, Uber and, of course, Amazon. Looking at it in this light takes out the AI hype and flighty narratives and focuses your analysis on actual numbers. As I write, Uber trades at 2.8 times revenue, DoorDash trades at 3.5 times revenue and Instacart started trading at 4 times revenue. On that basis alone, it's expensive, and I wouldn't recommend it. AI hype aside, I would consider buying Instacart below $20... and it's headed there. Down there, it's worth buying for its growth potential, its profitability and its AI tech. That's what I mean when I say you need a road map to navigate all the AI hype. There's no doubt that every investor needs exposure to the AI space and its explosive growth potential... but if you're not careful and just go after every ticker that has an AI angle right now, you're going to lose your shirt. Fortunately, I've hand-picked what I think are the absolute best ways to profit from the AI boom right now. Go here to learn more. Cheers, Shah | 
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